The Belize Communications Workers Union says it is ready to launch industrial action against BTL. It's all because the management yesterday terminated three employees who are union liaisons with the management. The union has been left to speculate about the reason for the termination and the only thing they can come up with is the theft of 1500 cellular phones from the stores section of the company in Ladyville. But while the union has this as the motive they say that management has informed them that there will be a need for restructuring of the company and that they say may be the real reason for the firings. President of the union Paul Perriot spoke to us today and he says they now reserve the right to do as they please.
Paul Perriot, BCWU - President
"The process of consultation that should have been whenever there a termination or any proposal that the company contemplates should come to the union first and then we would go through the process of negotiation and again discuss trying to find what is the real reason behind it. You always have three sides to a story so we should have been brought in immediately. For quite a while now the investigation within ourselves has been going on because we know that the same staff members had approached us on issues of missing equipment, cell phones from the stores department. They had approached us about that and we had been investigating with them, we're trying to question them because we won't stand either for any theft. So we again tried to find out where and how the phones could have gone missing."
Alfonso Noble,
Do you know if these three persons were fired because of the missing cellular phones?
Paul Perriot,
"Well there is a direct relation to it but from the letter that they received, it was an open close letter. At this moment they still cannot tie the employees to the theft, to the missing items; they cannot tie the employees to it. We know that they are missing. We know from the employees that were breaches to the compound. They are not the only ones to have keys to the storeroom either. Our response is that it is in direct relation to Dean Boyce's statement to the staff that there has to be some sort of cut in staff. And they have given willingly to the union that handshake, that whenever change is happening, we are going to consult you guys and we are going to come up with a solution as a team. If we sit down and allow them to do this restructuring or these terminations the way they did it, it will just lead to what he had said in the meeting of last week, that there has to be a certain head count or cut in head count."
Alfonso Noble,
Do you expect more of these type of terminations?
Paul Perriot,
"Well from this meeting we are. We cannot operate this way. We have a union, we have a collective bargaining agreement that is binding and we must follow that process. If they are going to break the collective bargaining agreement that we have and breach that, then we in turn have the right to breach it also."
That was this afternoon, but this evening, the situation at BTL is tense as the union alleges that management forced its membership off the compound after a late-evening union meeting. According to union executives, the general membership from Belize and other districts have expressed their readiness to institute industrial action. We'll keep you posted.
